Russian Missile Strikes on Ukraine

The death toll from an overnight Russian ballistic missile barrage on Kyiv has risen to at least nine people, with 23 others wounded, authorities confirmed on Friday, after earlier strikes killed six in the Kryvyi Rih area.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed a six-storey residential building was struck in the Solomianskyi district, where residents were trapped by falling debris and fires broke out. Fires and destruction were reported across five Kyiv districts, with both residential and industrial buildings damaged, including a car wash blaze in Shevchenkivskyi and parking lot fires in Solomianskyi. Debris also fell on non-residential buildings in the Holosiiv and Darnytsia districts.

Separately, three men were wounded in Russian attacks across the Sumy region, in the cities of Sumy, Trostianets and Vorozhba.

A Russian ballistic missile destroyed a drone factory in Kyiv owned by Terminal Autonomy, a US corporation registered in Delaware, marking the first direct attack on an American enterprise operating in Ukraine. No casualties were reported.

The facility produced strike drones equipped with jam-resistant guidance systems designed for deep strikes into Russian territory. The attack occurred last Friday.

The strike comes amid growing US-Ukraine defense cooperation. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed early July talks with President Donald Trump regarding Patriot system production licenses, and Trump announced at the July 8 NATO summit in Ankara that the United States plans to purchase Ukrainian drones. The Pentagon acknowledged in late July that the US remains far behind Ukraine in drone production capacity.

A suspected Russian cruise missile crashed into a field in eastern Poland early Thursday, leaving a 10-metre crater during a mass aerial assault on Ukraine that killed at least 13 people.

Polish air defences detected an unidentified object entering national airspace at 3:40 a.m., scrambling an F-16 fighter jet before the target vanished from radar six minutes later. An Mi-24 helicopter later located the impact site near Tarnawa-Kolonia, roughly 45 kilometres south of Lublin, where authorities found a crater and scattered debris of an unidentified object about two kilometres from residential buildings. Air-raid sirens sounded in Lublin and Krasnystaw for approximately 11 minutes. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the projectile was likely a Russian Kh-101 missile, a claim echoed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

The incident coincided with a large-scale Russian bombardment of multiple Ukrainian regions, including strikes on Lviv that damaged apartment buildings and wounded 26 people. The Military Police, ABW, and SKW have opened investigations into the breach of Polish territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of a high probability of a massive Russian attack overnight on July 29, 2026, urging all regions to heed air raid sirens. Hours later, explosions from missiles were heard in Kyiv, and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed the capital was under ballistic missile attack. Strikes were also reported in Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro.

Zelensky stated on X that Russia had prepared the large-scale assault days earlier and stressed Ukraine's dependence on foreign air defense support. Unconfirmed reports indicated Russian Tu-160 bombers were already airborne before the strikes began.

Ukraine faces a shortage of PAC-3 interceptor missiles for its Patriot systems, a deficit worsened since the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran in February 2026. Zelensky met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on July 28. The U.N. human rights office reported that civilian casualties in Ukraine rose 37 percent in the first half of 2026.